Doubts Came Early in Balloon Incident

Before the fame-seeking backyard scientist Richard Heene phoned the police to report that his 6-year-old son, Falcon, had floated away on a homemade flying saucer Thursday morning, he called a local TV station and asked them to send a news helicopter.

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Taken aback by the request, the news director at the station, KUSA-TV, Patti Dennis, said she called back and told Mr. Heene flatly, “I don’t believe you.” Still skeptical when Mr. Heene put a police officer on the phone to verify the story, Ms. Dennis added, “I told the deputy that I didn’t believe he was real, either.”

Eventually satisfied by the local police’s report of a missing child, she dispatched the helicopter to the skies over Fort Collins, Colo., where the helium-filled balloon had taken flight, jump-starting an extraordinary afternoon of television coverage. Cable news anchors suspended skepticism in favor of spectacular images of the balloon as it glided across northern Colorado and landed in a dusty field about 60 miles away, and the ratings for CNN and the Fox News Channel doubled for the duration of the spectacle.

But even before Falcon was found hours later hiding inside a box in the Heene family home, incredulous observers were asking: Is it all a hoax?

Speculation that the runaway balloon was a publicity stunt by the family increased Thursday night after Falcon, in an interview on CNN, was asked why he had hid from his family for five hours  in the garage attic, the one place investigators did not search  while local and federal authorities scoured three counties, fearing he had fallen from the balloon.

“You guys said that, um, we did this for the show,” the boy said.

Police officials said Friday that they did not think they had been tricked by the Heene family into following the balloon, but said they would investigate by interviewing family members on Saturday. Sheriff Jim Alderden of Larimer County said at a news conference that the interview plans were prompted by the “show” reference.

“Clearly, that has raised everybody’s level of skepticism again,” Sheriff Alderden said, “and we feel it’s incumbent upon us to go back to the family and re-interview them to establish whether it was a hoax or a real event. We believe it was a real event.”

Sheriff Alderden said that if Mr. Heene had made a false report  which is a misdemeanor  his office would seek restitution. It was unclear how much the search cost.

On television Friday morning, Mr. Heene strongly denied that the incident was a hoax and said his son’s comment was misinterpreted. “What have I got to gain out of this?” he said on “Today” on NBC. “I’m not selling anything. I’m not advertising anything.”

The Heenes have harbored television aspirations for years, acquaintances said Friday. The family appeared twice on the ABC reality show “Wife Swap,” and Mr. Heene pitched a TV series about his family earlier this year, including to the cable channel TLC, which said it turned down the proposal months ago.

“He wanted the press to see his flying saucer, I’m sure,” said Sheree Silver, a Florida psychic who lived with the Heenes for an episode of “Wife Swap” broadcast in March. But Ms. Silver rejected the notion of a publicity stunt, saying, “I can’t believe he would do something like that.”

In the wake of the incident, Web users pored over Mr. Heene’s old YouTube videos, including ones that claim to show proof of life on Mars and that ask whether Hillary Rodham Clinton is a “reptilian.” His scientific obsessions were no secret in his quiet, residential neighborhood.

Mr. Heene said that his two other sons had been helping tether the balloon on Thursday, but that Falcon was not in the backyard at the time. Falcon told reporters he had been hiding because his father had yelled at him earlier for playing in the balloon.

When the balloon lifted off, Mr. Heene said, his 10-year-old son, Bradford, told him that Falcon could be inside, prompting the emergency reaction.

After Falcon was found, the family lingered for nearly an hour taking questions from a mass of reporters who spilled onto the front lawn. Mr. Heene took business cards from eager TV producers while his children played in the yard.

Sarah Duty, who lives down the street from the Heenes, said Friday that the news media was being unfair to the family without knowing the facts. “It was a crazy, crazy accident,” she said, adding, “A lot of people are passing judgment before they know the facts.”

After a round of morning TV interviews Friday, the Heenes stopped talking to the news media, and Mr. Heene’s elaborate Web site, The Science Detectives, appeared to have been taken offline. By the early afternoon, a white handwritten note had been posted on the door of the family’s home, stating: “Thank you for all of your support. We are not taking any interview any more. We are tired.”

Liz Robbins contributed reporting.

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US »A version of this article appeared in print on October 17, 2009, on page A8 of the New York edition.